It's cool if you don't like their tones, but I would never call their tone garbage. I think Ride is my fav album, but i go back and forth on that. I think they did some amazing work considering the shoestring budgets with time and money for the first few albums. They may have tried too hard on AJFA, but I love that one too. Load and Re-Load? maybe they shouldn't have made those albums under the Metallica brand, but I feel there is a lot of great stuff on those albums too. I think I like almost every song on Load... took a while to get used to though. I really like Death Magnetic. Suicide & Redemption. judas kiss.All nightmare long. The harmonies in the day that never comes... There is a lot of good parts on st anger, though I'd say these tones are my least fav. lot of good riffage.

If I recall right, the rig James used on TBA tour was blending a IIC+ with his parametric EQ with the ADA MP-1 (which used the MQ-1) for his dirty sound. He blended a Mesa Studio Preamp with a Roland JC-120 for cleans, and everything (except the JC-120) was slaved into Mesa Strategy 400 power amps (even the IIC+).

Silverwulf wrote:If I recall right, the rig James used on TBA tour was blending a IIC+ with his parametric EQ with the ADA MP-1 (which used the MQ-1) for his dirty sound. He blended a Mesa Studio Preamp with a Roland JC-120 for cleans, and everything (except the JC-120) was slaved into Mesa Strategy 400 power amps (even the IIC+).

Silverwulf wrote:If I recall right, the rig James used on TBA tour was blending a IIC+ with his parametric EQ with the ADA MP-1 (which used the MQ-1) for his dirty sound. He blended a Mesa Studio Preamp with a Roland JC-120 for cleans, and everything (except the JC-120) was slaved into Mesa Strategy 400 power amps (even the IIC+).

How do you know this ?

From a rig diagram from one of the old guitar mags. I collected a lot of them. Metallica fanboy back in the day here, haha.

decker wrote:Thank you Silverwulf for this answer. Do you have other information like this about the sound of J. Hetfield during the recording of TBA ?

Thanks.

I know I'm kicking a dead horse here, but I see this question pop up a lot. Would there be any interest if I did a "Black Album" tone write up of sorts?

I would most certainly be interested. Just joined the board, and find a lot of useful information and ideas to try out. I kinda want to strike a few expired equines myself. Been experimenting with the late 90's tones myself and am enjoying the feel of this tone.